What?: On November 22, 1963, Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn into presidency after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas during his 1960 campaign. During his first term, President Johnson passed Kennedy’s endorsed bills that were drafted before he was assassinated. The bills were tax cuts and a civil rights act, which became known as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He was re-sworn into office for his second term in office after winning the election of 1964 where he beat his opponent, Hubert Humphrey. He won the election with 61% of American votes, which was more than 150,000,000 votes. During his second term, he focused on building a Great Society in America. He encouraged Americans by stating “To build a Great Society, place where the meaning of man’s life matches the marvels of man’s labor”. Throughout his second administration, he passed more than sixty education bills, declared war on poverty, saw federal support on arts and humanities, defended urban renewal, environmental beautification and conservation, enabled development of depressed regions and pushed for control and prevention of crime and felony. To help education he created the Elementary and Secondary Education Act which gave one billion dollars to public education, the Higher Education Act of 1968 and Bilingual Education Act of 1968. The Head Start program was also created to help poor disadvantaged children to start/attend school. To aid Americans who were in poverty, Johnson created the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, Model Cities Program, Job Corps, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Volunteers in Service to America, and Upward Bound. The enactment of the Medicare Amendment to the Social Security Act of 1965 gave elderly Americans medical attention. Another health care was Medicaid, which guaranteed health care to individuals who don’t have monetary assets to pay for healthcare costs. The Great Society also focused on civil rights, which advanced after President Johnson passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which removed poll taxes and test that presented as a barrier for African Americans to vote, and Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prevented discrimination in housing sales and rentals. He appointed the first African American Supreme Court Justice and cabinet member, Thurgood Marshall. The Great Society program became President Johnson’s main outline for Congress throughout his second term in office, starting from January 1965.

So What?: After President Kennedy’s assassination, which killed the American dream, President Johnson’s Great Society program gave American citizens hope towards the future. The Great Society increased equality among Americans. For example, he endorsed acts such as the Model Cities Programs, which enforced urban redevelopment, Job Corps, which helped underprivileged youth develop job skills, and VISTA, which gave citizens a chance to help the poorer class overcome their poverty. These programs gave financial equality among all Americans in the United States. Equality among race was increased through the Civil Rights Act of 196, Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Service Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. These civil rights acts guaranteed no job discrimination, no segregation in public, minority registration and voting abolish national-origin quotas, banned housing discrimination, extended protect to Native Americans who lived on reservations, and brought end to racial injustice. Through the Great Society program, Americans experienced equality and fairness in society just as Johnson stated in his speech when he claimed that the programs will “enrich and elevate our national life, and [will be used] to advance the quality of our American civilization.”

Now What?: Even though many of the programs were eliminated throughout the century, some of his programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal education funding acts are still present today. The Food Stamp Act of 1964 was created to help fight poverty among Americans. The Food Stamp Act gives stamps to individuals, who make a small income, which can be redeemed for food. This program is still in effect today. President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Medicare Law that was enacted in 1965 still influences our society today. Johnson’s Medicare Law gave elder citizens, who were over sixty-five, healthcare stability. Today, President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, known better as Obamacare, is influenced from President Johnson’s Medicare Law. Obama’s Affordable Care Act offers American elder seniors a range of preventive service with no cost-sharing and discounts on medicine and drugs. This act is a reformed law that strengthens the Medicare Law of 1965.

14 Comments

I liked how you split up the paragraphs to be specific on what question each is answering! That helps the reader out a lot. The amount of pictures was perfect and you hit the topic perfectly. I took away a lot of information on why LBJ was elected into office the way that he was and more information about him. It would have been better if you would have put the video directly on the blog instead of just providing the link.
-Kelsey

Dear Anna and Eunice,
I thought it was really interesting to see all the things LBJ was able to accomplish in his presidency when he never really meant to become president. I never knew that he created so many of the organizations such as Medicaid and Medicaid. I’m glad he supported education and medical care for all Americans. I would suggest breaking up your posts a little more because they were information heavy. Overall, the biggest thing I took away is was that LBJ was able to carry on JKF’s plan

I really liked this post since it was very informative. I find it interesting that the Medicare law is very important. If I were to change this project I would have the video be able to play in the post instead of just having a link. Overall this was a great project.

Anna and Eunice,
I really liked how well written and informational your post was. It really made me grasp what you were saying. The only one suggestion I have is to split up your paragraphs so they are easier to read and more in detail. I really like how you made a relationship between the present and the past with this post. One thing that i learned was that Medicare Law was made in 1965 and without that law there would be no basis for Obamacare in the present tense today.
-Sarah

i had no idea that during Hubert Humphrey second term he passed over sixtie education bills that helped the nation’s young society to flurish in the fields of knowledge. I really enjoyed your post, not changes are needed.

I really like this post because you gave a lot of details and the information was very helpful. The pictures that went along with your project helped depicts your topic. I think you should balance out your paragraphs, overall I learned that without the Great Society America would have collapsed. I also took away from this that Obamacare was based off the Medicare Law

Eunice and Anna,
I found your post to be very informative and entertaining! I really liked the amount of
information put in; it made me feel like i had a grasp on what was being discussed. My only critique would be for you to break up the information some into a few more paragraphs so that they aren’t so daunting and so that it might be a little easier to read. I didn’t know that Obamacare was influenced by other laws set in place during the 1960s! Overall I really enjoyed reading your post!
-Jessica Pierce

Eunice,
I thought your post was very informative and well written. I enjoyed learning about what LBJ did for our country back then. One thing I would suggest is to split up the paragraphs to make it easier to read and more understandable. The pictures and video really helped create a visual. I learned the LBJ passed many bills to improve our country. Overall, I thought you did a great job.

Euncie and Anna,
I thought this post was very informative. I think the best part was all of the details included. For instance, the quotes, numbers, and statistics really helped bring the post to life. The way the post was written also helped understand the main points and helped to learn the material better. For example, the post was written so that events were explained in the order of which they occurred- almost like a timeline! An improvement would be to have loaded the youtube video into Active Inspire so that it could be played automatically without having to copy-paste th URL into a separate browser.

Eunice and Anna,
I really liked this post because it was very thorough and informative. I took away that the Medicare law is very important and it was created in 1965. If I were to change this project I would have the video be able to play in the post instead of just having a link. Overall it was a great post and it had all the necessary information about The Great Society and LBJ.

I enjoyed reading this article, I can see the plans put into effect by Johnson were similar to those brought by Obama. The information I read was very good and it provided the reader with a good idea of the ways to improve the American Society. It’s amazing that the programs are still in effect today.

I thought you did a good job following the project guild lines. I enjoyed how informative and detailed your project was. One thing I would suggest is to break up your paragraphs to make them more specific and easier to read. Another suggestion would be to upload your video instead of just put the link so it is easier to watch. What I got most out of your post was the connection between President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Medicare law and President Obama’s Affordable Care act. Another thing I learned from your blog post was about all the progress President Johnson made for civil rights.

Eunice,
I really enjoyed the thorough background that you provided. The descriptions were very good and provided very good information. I suggest that you balance out all of the paragraphs. Other than that I don’t have any suggestions for you and your paragraphs were very good. Overall I learned that without the Great Society America could have potentially fallen. I also learned that Medicare Law was made in 1965 by LBJ and without it there would be no basis for Obamacare.

I really liked this post. You provided a lot of details and your information was put together really well. Your pictures also helped provide a really good visual of what was going on. The only thing I would recommend is to organize your paragraphs so they are relatively the same. Other than that this post is very good. I took away a lot of information about LBJ that I had never heard before and I liked how you used present times to relate to the great society.
-Anna